janito 4.12.0

OpenAI CLI with Function Calling, MCP Support, and Extensible Tools

janito - a development agent with function calling, MCP and skills

📖 Full documentation available at https://ikignosis.github.io/janito/

⚠️ Disclaimer: The code on this repo has been developed mostly using AI, more specifically the Qwen models.

Features

• 🔧 Function Calling - Built-in tools for file operations, web search, and more
• 📧 Gmail Integration - Read, search, and manage emails
• ☁️ OneDrive Integration - Browse, upload, download, and share files
• 🔌 MCP Support - Connect to Model Context Protocol servers
• 🧩 Skills - Install and use task-specific skills from GitHub
• 🌐 Web UI (Alpha) - Chat through a browser instead of the terminal with --web
• 📊 Real-time Progress - Watch tool execution progress as it happens
• 🚀 Easy Setup - Interactive configuration with --config or quick setup with --set flags
• 🔗 Any OpenAI-Compatible API - Works with OpenAI, local servers (LM Studio, Ollama), and custom endpoints

NOTE: Janito should be used on development systems on which data loss is tolerable and there are no critical secrets

Quick Start

# Install
pip install janito

# Or, with uv (recommended)
uv tool install janito

# Configure interactively
janito --config

# Or set options directly (two steps: config, then API key)
janito --set provider=openai --set model=gpt-4
janito --set-api-key="sk-your-key" --provider openai

# Start chatting
janito "Hello!"

Installation

From PyPI

pip install janito

Or, with uv:

uv tool install janito

For development setup, see README_DEV.md.

Configuration

Interactive Setup

janito --config

You'll be prompted for:

• Provider - openai or custom
• API Key - Masked for security
• Model - e.g., gpt-4, gpt-3.5-turbo
• Context Window - Max tokens (default: 65536)

Quick Configuration with --set

Set options directly from the command line:

# Single key-value
janito --set model=gpt-4

You can also use --get, --unset, and --set-secret with multiple values.

View Configuration

janito --show-config

Available Options

Option	Description	Example
provider	Provider name	openai, custom
model	Model name	gpt-4, claude-3-opus
context-window-size	Context window size	65536

For custom endpoints (base-url), see README_custom.md.

Usage

Single Prompt

janito "What is the capital of France?"

Pipe Input

echo "Tell me a joke" | janito

Interactive Chat

janito

Commands in chat mode:

• exit / quit - End session
• restart - Clear conversation history
• Ctrl+D / Ctrl+Z - Exit

Web UI (Alpha)

⚠️ Alpha — The --web mode is currently in alpha. It works, but the interface, CLI flags, and API may change between releases.

Janito can serve a browser-based chat interface instead of the terminal. This requires optional dependencies that are not part of the core install:

# Install with the web extra
pip install janito[web]
# or
uv tool install janito[web]

Then start the server (opens your browser automatically):

janito --web

# All normal Janito flags still apply, plus web-specific ones:
janito --web -r -w --gmail --web-port 9090      # privileges + gmail, custom port
janito --web --no-web-open                      # don't auto-open the browser

The server binds to 127.0.0.1 by default (localhost only). For full details (features, security, API endpoints, architecture), see the Web UI documentation.

System Prompt Options

Control how the system prompt is handled:

# Use default system prompt (with tools enabled)
janito "What can you do?"

# Disable system prompt entirely (no tools)
janito -Z "Simple prompt without system context"

# Override with a custom system prompt (no tools)
janito -S "You are a concise coding assistant" "Explain recursion"

Flag	Description
-Z, --no-system-prompt	Skip system prompt and disable tools
-S, --system-prompt	Custom system prompt (also disables tools)

Note: When using -S or -Z, built-in tools (file operations, Gmail, OneDrive, MCP) are disabled. Use the default mode or --gmail/--onedrive flags when you need tool access.

Logging

janito --log=info "Your prompt"      # Info level
janito --log=debug "Your prompt"     # Debug level
janito --log=info,debug "Your prompt" # Multiple levels

Examples

OpenAI

# Step 1: Set provider and model
janito --set provider=openai --set model=gpt-4
# Step 2: Store API key
janito --set-api-key="sk-your-key" --provider openai

# Then run any prompt
janito "Explain quantum computing"

Alibaba (Qwen)

# Step 1: Set provider and model
janito --set provider=alibaba --set model=qwen-plus
# Step 2: Store API key
janito --set-api-key="your-dashscope-api-key" --provider alibaba

# Then run any prompt
janito "Explain quantum computing"

Custom Endpoint

janito --set provider=custom --set base-url=http://localhost:8000/v1

Built-in Tools

janito includes tools for common tasks:

Email Integration (Gmail)

# Use Gmail in chat mode
janito --gmail

# Check emails
janito --gmail "Show my unread emails from today"

For full Gmail documentation, see README.gmail.md.

Cloud Storage (OneDrive)

# Authenticate with Microsoft OneDrive
janito --onedrive-auth

# Use OneDrive in chat mode
janito --onedrive

# List files
janito --onedrive "List my files in Documents"

For full OneDrive documentation, see README.onedrive.md.

File Operations

# List files
python -m janito.tools.files.list_files . --recursive --pattern "*.py"

# Read file
python -m janito.tools.files.read_file README.md --max-lines 20

MCP Tools

Connect to MCP servers using the /mcp command inside the interactive shell:

# Add a stdio-based MCP server
/mcp add myserver stdio python -m mcp.server

# Add an HTTP-based MCP server
/mcp add remote http https://api.example.com/mcp

# List configured servers
/mcp list

For full MCP documentation, see README_MCP.md.

Tool Progress Reporting

Tools report progress in real-time:

🔄 Reading files...
📊 Processing: 50/100 files
✅ Completed: 100 files (2.3MB)

Progress messages go to stderr so they don't interfere with tool output.

Error Handling

Exit Code	Meaning
0	Success
1	Configuration or runtime error
130	User cancelled (Ctrl+C)

Dependencies

• Python 3.10+
• openai>=1.0.0
• rich>=10.0.0
• prompt-toolkit>=3.0.0
• requests>=2.28.0 (for MCP support)
• pathspec>=0.11.0 (for .gitignore-aware file listing)

License

MIT License